


open hands

by ewagan



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 03:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10179356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan/pseuds/ewagan
Summary: He believed in two things then. The first was Oha Asa, the only way he could control something as fickle as luck.The second was Akashi’s infallibility.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themorninglark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/gifts).



> Title taken from the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sLW5hT6NwE) of the same name by Ingrid Michaelson.
> 
> For lark, who writes beautifully and for being all-around inspiring (be the content creator you want to see), and also for tipping me back into kurobas hell. Here's your thank you gift.

Midorima thinks that he is overtired when he spots the red hair at the station, on the other end of the platform. That he is imagining things, having only recently unearthed the picture of them from Teiko, before things had changed.

But the crowd thins as they move towards the stairs and he can see more clearly and confirms that it is indeed, Akashi Seijuurou, who has also spotted him and is seemingly making his way over to where Midorima stands, until they are barely three feet apart.

There is a certain weight to shared history, one that cannot be erased even though the years are gone. Midorima stands at the platform and looks at Akashi, wondering how is it after so many years, Akashi can make him feel like he's thirteen and awkward, his only saving grace being his skill in basketball and a capacity for hard work.

But he is no longer thirteen, nor does he play basketball. Infatuation is a fickle thing, and so is the heart. In this, Midorima thinks he has grown older and better at managing it, so he inclines his head in acknowledgement of Akashi. He is not fourteen and so in love with someone he could be sick with it, nor is he sixteen and jaded and somehow still hopeful that things could change.

He’s forgotten a lot of things, having consigned them to the hands of time and nostalgia. Akashi’s hair is longer, pulled back into a style that befits his position as the heir of a large corporation. Midorima knows he looks tired, and he still looks the same as he did at thirteen, only taller and having filled out so he is no longer so lanky. He doesn’t wrap his left hand with bandages anymore, and he isn’t in love with Akashi Seijuurou.

“Midorima.” Akashi’s face is curious, and Midorima remembers again something he has forgotten, or perhaps, chose to forget. Once upon a time, hearing Akashi call his name had made his heart stutter in his chest, made him hold his breath and exhale slowly, softly.

“Akashi.” The name feels awkward in his mouth, for all that it is familiar. It is not one Midorima has had occasion to speak for years now, since their paths had diverged.

“How have you been?” Akashi inquires politely.

“Well enough. Yourself?” He knows that his shoulders are tense, that Akashi can see it.

“Busy. Tired.” The confession surprises Midorima. Akashi has rarely been frank about his weaknesses, even in their younger years.

“I hear the business is doing well.”

“Well enough, I suppose.” Midorima looks at Akashi again, more carefully. He still looks as distant and unattainable as he had in middle school, even more so in high school. But Midorima can also see traces of the last ten years on his face, in the way the jaw was more defined, faint signs of tiredness around his eyes. Akashi catches him looking and he looks away, listening for the rush of wind that preceded the arrival of a train.

“Midorima.”

“Yes?”

“Have dinner with me.” The request startles Midorima. He turns to look at Akashi, an eyebrow slightly raised in question. Akashi merely stares back, inscrutable as ever.

“Tonight?” Midorima can hear the high pitched whistle that signaled the arrival of a train.

“If you’re not busy, then yes. Tonight.” Akashi inclines his head even as the train rumbles in and screeches to a stop.

Midorima hesitates before deciding. “I suppose I could.”

Akashi’s quiet smile is like a punch to the gut that Midorima was not expecting.

“Shall we then?” Akashi asks, indicating the train. Midorima nods and follows him.

 

Memories are finicky things, Midorima is realizing as he speaks with Akashi over dinner.

He remembers Akashi as an ideal, someone to emulate. Captain of the basketball team, student council president, model student. Outside of that, he was accomplished in both the piano and the violin.

He believed in two things then. The first was Oha Asa, the only way he could control something as fickle as luck.

The second was Akashi’s infallibility.

But Akashi was not perfect then, nor was he now. Old habits die hard and Akashi has yet to lose the habit of tapping his fingers against any available surface when he is nervous. As Midorima pours tea for both of them, Akashi’s tapping ceases and he hides his hands by folding them over his elbows. Midorima wants to ask, because it is not like Akashi to display his weaknesses so easily. Instead, he holds his tongue and lets Akashi steer the conversation.

“How is work?” Akashi asks. Midorima has no doubts that Akashi has tracked his career over the years, but he indulges Akashi and tells him about his residency and his current placement in the hospital, and how he’s been offered an opportunity to go abroad and further his studies, if he chooses to take it up.

“That would be advantageous to your career development.” Akashi comments. His hands are now curled around his cup, running a finger over the rim slowly.

“I suppose it would be, but I haven’t quite decided yet.” Midorima says. He is almost certain to say yes, and yet. Their respective dinners arrive just then, and the subject hangs heavy in between them.

“Let me know your decision, regardless what you choose.” Akashi says, finally. He picks up his chopsticks and begins to eat, and they spend the rest of the evening discussing the current political climate and current affairs.

Before they part, Akashi stops him with a touch on his arm.

“Can we have dinner again sometime?” Akashi asks. Midorima is surprised at the request, but he has little reason to refuse.

“Of course.” Midorima’s response is stiff and awkward, but he is sincere. He hesitates briefly, and adjusts his scarf to hide his awkwardness. “Good night, Akashi.”

“Good night.” Akashi’s head tilts with acknowledgment, and they part ways.

 

The thing with time and distance was that it was easy to let go of things. Between high school and university, Midorima has lost touch with many people. He still gets an infrequent text from Kise every now and then, but Aomine has never been one to keep in touch nor has Murasakibara, and Midorima had hardly pursued it. Sometimes Momoi calls him to update him, and he and Kuroko still regularly exchange new year’s greetings and occasional letters. It is only Takao whom he keeps in constant contact with, who checks up on him to make sure he hasn’t died from overwork every other week.

Somewhere along the line, he’d also lost touch with Akashi, and he supposes it should not be so surprising. There is little space and time for things like nostalgia when his days are an endless cycle of work and getting just enough sleep to function.

But sometimes, he has a few moments to breathe and he finds himself thinking about what things used to be like, and the person he used to be. And seeing Akashi has reminded him of a lot of things he had forgotten, or perhaps chosen to forget.

It is difficult to reconcile the Akashi Seijuurou he sees in the papers with the one he used to know, and the one he had dinner with. But Midorima supposes that it is human nature after all, to wear many different faces. Even in Teiko, Akashi was never just one person. Akashi Seijuurou was not the same as Akashi, who would play shogi for long hours after basketball practices.

He remembers now, the hazy sunlight in an empty classroom, the way Akashi looked at him as if he meant _something_ , how Akashi had smiled just so, only for him. And he wonders if his memories are all coloured by his feelings, making them unreliable.

(He cannot forget the way his feelings had crumbled in the face of another defeat by Akashi, the way Akashi had stood over him, impassive and uncaring.)

(But he also does not forget the relief that swept over him when he stands on the court and he sees Akashi for the first time in years, the Akashi they had lost in Teiko.)

 

Somewhere in the second year of his residency, Midorima finds himself thinking of the last year in Teiko. In between rounds of the wards and writing report after report, something makes him wonder when he had changed, when they had changed so much.

He wonders about Akashi, whom he hasn’t spoken to in three years, and has not seen in four. The last contact he’d had from Akashi was a new year’s greeting, Akashi’s impeccable handwriting wishing him a good year ahead. He had sent one in reply, equally distant and polite.

He starts a letter, but it’s difficult for continue. He has always been disinclined to be maudlin, but some of these things weigh on him more heavily than he thought, even after all these years. It was always Kuroko with the knack for words, and Midorima struggles to find the right ones now. It frustrates him and he gives up, instead penning his thoughts.

_Akashi, do you think we could go back to the way we were? Before you made captain, before Aomine changed, before we all changed._

_Let’s go back to the people we were, the people we used to be. When Aomine smiled and Kuroko didn’t look like he’d carried the weight of the world, before Kise’s eyes took on that cynical edge and Momoi looked so lost, before Murasakibara’s apathy outweighed all else._

_We lost so much that year, even though we kept winning._

He doesn’t finish it, simply slips it into an envelope and tucks it into an old textbook. These are his regrets to keep.

 

They meet for dinner again, in a restaurant downtown.

“I never thought you’d take up smoking.” Midorima comments as he watches Akashi light the cigarette.

Akashi’s answering smile is a little wry, a little rueful. “Neither did I, but then I supposed I picked up some bad habits over time as well.” Midorima raises an eyebrow, and Akashi shrugs almost delicately.

“I was going to quit, you know.” Akashi says conversationally, even as he taps the cigarette against the ashtray. He barely puffs at it, and Midorima wonders if Akashi does it simply to set something on fire and watch it burn, or if it’s another way to hide his nervous habits.

“I’m surprised you even started.” Midorima adjusts his glasses so they sit properly again. Akashi’s gaze is contemplative as he looks over at Midorima.

“It’s just for the bad days, now.” he murmurs softly, before he stubs out the cigarette. Deftly, he changes the subject to an upcoming business trip to Europe, and they talk about travelling for a while.

“Have you decided yet?” Akashi inquires, during a lull in their conversation.

Midorima hesitates. There is little reason to refuse the offer, but he doesn’t know why he still hasn’t sent his reply yet. “Almost.” he says, after a while. The way Akashi looks at him is almost as if he can see what Midorima is thinking, see through the reasons Midorima is hesitating. But Akashi merely inclines his head.

“It would not do to rush into a big decision.” he says instead. Abruptly, he stands. “Come. Walk with me.” It does not feel as much a request as it does a command, but Midorima follows after Akashi anyways, leaving the restaurant behind.

They walk along the Kamogawa, hands in their pockets as the wind blows. All rivers flow to the sea, and he remembers a teacher once saying that rivers were like the arteries of the land, bringing life where they flowed.

He wonders if people are like that, as if it was inevitable that they would meet again somewhere, somehow.

Midorima had believed in two things, once.

They both had failed him, in the end.

 

He remembers long afternoons and shogi pieces, loss after loss and Akashi’s long fingers, easy smiles and conversations about nothing and everything. He let it by, like he’s let many things go by. He’d been a different person then, but he hasn’t changed that much either.

He forgets a lot of things, having been washed away with time and new memories, new experiences. The painful ones he doesn’t want to relive, but it hits him like a punch in the gut when Akashi tilts his head just so.

But he has also forgotten this: the inevitability of loss, the feeling as if he would never measure up to Akashi’s successes despite his best attempts. _Man proposes, God disposes_. In this, Midorima has always felt as if he had been lacking, in spite of all his preparations and efforts, Akashi would always come up on top.

Now, they are not the same anymore, and Midorima has stopped believing in things like fate and fortune. It means little in the rush of the emergency room, in the quiet of a ward of sick children, when his hands are shaking and there is nothing he can do to help or make things better. It means even less when he watches a girl younger than his sister smile at him and tell him it’s okay, she wasn’t meant to live long after all.

It means nothing in a room where grief hangs heavy and seeps into his clothes like the smell of incense, in the face of a mother who has lost a child and does not know how to stop the tears from coming.

 

He graduates high school with an offer to Kyoto University, much as he had expected. Akashi offers his congratulations over tea, the week after their exams are over. He is in Tokyo only for the weekend, at his father’s behest.

“Midorima, do you believe in unconditional love?” The question is posed as idle chatter, but Midorima is familiar with this, the way Akashi poses questions of significance with little to no preamble, making them easily dismissable.

He considers his answer even as he refills Akashi’s cup, the motions elegant after years of long practice with his mother.

“Do you, Akashi?” Midorima asks at last.

Akashi’s answer is a half smile hidden by the rim of his cup, and the conversation switches to Midorima’s upcoming move to Kyoto.

(Even now, Midorima still does not know the answer to the question, nor why Akashi had asked it.)

 

At times he thinks of high school, afternoons spent tracing lines across graph paper. Some ran parallel, always the same distance from each other. Some were sinusoidal, meeting again and again in a repeating pattern that did not change. Some were tangential, meeting at one point and never to cross again. He wonders if Akashi and he were like that, but only now their lines have intersected once more, and Midorima cannot guess at the equation that dictates where else they might intersect, or if they will at all.

If only life were as easy to map out as a graph, with a formula dictated by reason and logic. He has said yes to the opportunity to go abroad, and many of his things are already packed in preparation for leaving.

He writes a letter to Akashi informing him of his decision and the dates of his departure, sealing it in an envelope. Later, he will post it before his next shift. Perhaps they will see each other before he leaves, perhaps not.

 

There is an afternoon he remembers where they abandoned their shogi match and had instead appropriated the music room. Akashi had sat next to him as he played piece after piece, warm and solid as he added pretty arpeggios and glissandos as a harmony to the pieces Midorima was playing.

Akashi had smiled at him, their shoulders pressed together as their fingers danced over the black and white keys.

Later, Akashi’s hand curved hesitantly over his as he taught Midorima the opening bars to _Spiegel im Spiegel_ , suggesting they try a duet one day.

(He thinks, once upon a time it had to mean _something_ , even if it meant nothing now.

He wonders if Akashi remembers.)

 

The week before he leaves, he meets with Akashi again. It’s late as they walk along the Kamogawa, and Midorima thinks he will miss this.

“I think I could have loved you, when we were in Teiko.” Akashi says suddenly. The words startle Midorima, and he falters briefly in his stride.

“And now?” Midorima asks.

“I could still.” Akashi is quiet for a moment, contemplative. “I might yet.”

“I did once.” Midorima confesses. “In Teiko.”

Akashi’s smile is sad and knowing, the passing years showing in the shadows of his face. “I know.”

Midorima knows regret when he hears it, when he sees it. He has never been particularly sensitive to people’s feelings, except in this regard. He has seen too much of it not to recognize it. Regrets are heavy, and they weigh on people in subtle ways that are difficult to see. In Akashi, it hangs in the straight line of his back, the set of his mouth, the faint creases of his eyes.

“Would you love me now, even after everything?” Akashi asks quietly.

Midorima thinks it over, considers the years that have passed and the ways he has changed, the ways Akashi has changed. He cannot claim to know Akashi now, not the way he could at fourteen, with the arrogance of youth and the surety of his place in Akashi’s life.

“Perhaps,” he says, finally. “In time.” But not the same way he loved Akashi at fourteen, or at sixteen. “I might still do, just not the same as I did in Teiko.” _We changed, from those days. I changed._ Those are the words he doesn’t say, but Akashi nods as if he has heard them.

“Could we be friends still, Midorima?” Akashi asks.

That one draws a rueful smile from Midorima. “Are we not friends now, Akashi?”

Akashi’s smile makes warmth bloom in his chest, and reminds him of long ago days.

(He so rarely thinks of Akashi without thinking of gold, of light slanting through the window as Akashi claims victory over a shogi board, of the glint of in an eye that was him but also not, of excellence and awards, of a smile that once meant something, and still does.)

“Write me, won’t you?” Akashi asks. And for a moment, he looks so far away it makes Midorima want to reach out and reassure himself that Akashi is still there. It is an impractical notion that Midorima dismisses almost immediately.

“Of course.”

They don’t talk for the rest of their walk until they part ways at the bridge. Midorima pauses to watch Akashi’s slim figure disappear in the distance, swallowed up by buildings, and he thinks of the letter that sits heavy in his pocket. There is no use for it now, not really. They can't go back, only forward.

So he rips it up, scatters the pieces and lets the wind carry them away, one thousand paper airplanes flying to nowhere.

There will be other letters in the interim, and Midorima will stop looking for the Akashi he once knew. Maybe when they meet again, it will be easier to reach out and bridge the distance between them.

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and kudos are very much appreciated.
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ewagan). c:


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